Saturday, October 24, 2009

PROTESTS FOLLOW ISRAELI WAR CRIMINAL OLMERT WHEREVER HE GOES….


Protesters shut down Olmert’s speech in San Francisco….. hopefully this trend will continue wherever he goes.
Read the report, including video HERE….

San Francisco protestors call Olmert ‘war criminal’

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators disrupt former prime minister’s speech, week after similar incident in Chicago. Woman identified as a Jew shouts at him, ‘No more genocide in my name’

Source: desert Peace


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The Fed At The Heart Of Control Of Our Country



Who controls things in Washington DC, really? americans dont understand how their system really works, Thugs with Ivy League Degrees run the show, debt monetized at a frantic pace and makes matters worse, delinquent and default mortgages, banks get money for nothing

Last week the Dow added 1.3%, the S&P 1.5%, the Russell 2000, 0.2% and the Nasdaq 100, 0.7%. Cyclicals rose 2.6%; transports 3.8%; consumers 1.7%; utilities 1.3%, as banks fell 0.3% and broker/dealers fell 0.6%. High tech fell 0.2% semis 1.1%; bitoechs 1.9% and Internets rose 0.2%. Gold bullion rose $3.00 and the HUI was unchanged, but up 47.5% on the year. The USDX, the dollar index fell 1.1% to 75.62.

The 2-year T-bills fell 2 bps to 0.83%, the 10-year notes rose 2 bps to 3.41% and the 10-year German bund added 8 bps to 3.28%.

Freddie Mac 30-year fixed rate mortgages rose 5 bps to 4.92%; the 15’s rose 4 bps to 4.37% and the one-year ARMs jumped 7 bps to 4.60%. The 30-year fixed jumbo fell 6 bps to 6.00%.

Federal Reserve credit declined $12.9 billion, up 21% yoy. Fed foreign holdings of Treasury/Agency debt rose $4.1 billion to a record $2.865 trillion. Custody holdings for foreign central banks expanded at a 17.5% rate ytd, and yoy 15.2%.

M-2 narrow money supply fell $23.3 billion to $8.341 trillion, that is 5.9% yoy.

Total money market assets dropped $42.3 billion to $3.404 trillion. They have declined $427 billion ytd, or 14.1% annualized.

The charade in NYC and Washington goes on. There is no question that our government is controlled by the unelected that lurks behind the scenes or are appointed as bureaucrats to run our country. It was never more evident than when administrations changed last January. Team A replaced Team B, all of whom just happen to be members of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg Group. There is no debate. There is only one plan and that is for one-world government. These are the Illuminists who will Shepard us into final bondage. This is what our government is all about today and has been since WWII.

The heart of the elitist control mechanism is the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department. Control of our country emanates from these two entities. They control the purse strings of our nation. They allow us to pay for our own destruction. This is achieved by taxation and debt. The system in place has been used for centuries to keep control over people. The elitists want total power over us and all the inhabitants of the world.

Their plans to bring down the world’s economic and financial structure is well underway. The problem is that the public has begun to discover what they are up too via talk radio, the Internet and publications such as the International Forecaster. That has caused the elitists to accelerate their plans and that has opened the window of opportunity for us.

This is why now it is the appropriate time to pass HR1207 and SB604, bills to audit and investigate the Federal Reserve. Once the public discovers what these elitists have been doing to the American people for almost a century, they will disband the Fed and turn its job of monetary policy back to the Treasury where it was placed by our Constitution. This way we will have control and transparency. The next step will be to close the revolving door between Wall Street and Washington.

t has been two years since the beginning of the credit crisis and the breakdown of our economic and financial structure. The plan by the elitists since then has been to keep the system functioning as long as possible so that they can continue their massive frauds and corruption; or until the time is ripe to allow the system to collapse. These plans are ably assisted by 95% of our House and Senate who are bought and paid for. The corruption is so widespread that investigations do not take place and the guilty are protected and at worst pay a fine.

Due to these machinations the America we have known is gone. Our country is run by thugs in $3,000 suits with Ivy League degrees.

Most Americans do not understand what is going on or don’t care to know. Most are ill-educated and do not really and a chance of comprehending what is going on. That is compounded by drugs and alcohol and a steady stream of media propaganda and brainwashing produced by NYC and Washington. Our daughter teaches the fourth grade and 20 of 23 students are not passing. They are split three ways: white, black and Spanish speaking. Then there is no ‘Child Left Behind,’ which will make sure they pass summer school and when they graduate they will be functionally illiterate. It doesn’t get much worse than this. When we went to school one or maybe two out of 30 wouldn’t pass and they were kept back for a year. It is outrageous. They spend all their time studying for federal government mandated tests, and learn little else. Our three grandchildren read one to four extra books a week and fortunately really excel in their studies. It can be done, but it takes lots of work and dedication something that most parents do not have time for. This in part is what is responsible for America’s failure and lack of leadership. Leadership, which is totally in the hands of the wealthy Illuminists. If it is any consolation the rest of the world isn’t doing much better.

The geniuses, the masters of the universe, have a broken system. This time the system they have deliberately destroyed cannot be resurrected. Due to talk radio, the Internet and publications such as the IF they had to accelerate their program for on-world government and they are scrambling, hoping they’ll be successful, and unscathed. We will make sure they’ll be no chance of that.

As a result of these machinations America is at the mercy of its creditors and for all intents and purposes is bankrupt. The only thing left holding America together is its imperial armies that eventually will collapse for lack of funding. Foreigners are not going to stand for monetization indefinitely. Yes, the players know the system has failed, and some have already broken ranks. If they had not Forex assets in sovereign reserves would not have fallen from 64.5% to 62.8% over the past nine months, as proof of that.

We have told you where we have been headed over and over again for more than ten years and we have been almost totally right unfortunately. If we do not stop these monsters we and our ancestors will live in bondage for ever. That is why passage of HR1207 and SB604 are so important. We have to drive a stake through the heart of the Illuminist machine. That heart is the Fed. If we are unsuccessful we are doomed to chaos and perhaps revolution. Americans had best wake up and snap out of denial.

Most analysts try to figure out what others within the financial and economic sphere are doing. Unfortunately they are burdened by playing within the system. They cannot see what is really going on because for one reason or another they are forced to frame their results within the inner sanctum of the Illuminists. This is the cover that is used for deliberately destroying nations. These ideas cannot simply be avoided. You would think reading history that all these brilliant people wouldn’t be deceived, but they have been. Every time, what they are doing has been tried, has been a failure. Deliberate collapses, destroyed currencies, social chaos and revolution. During the French Revolution 300,000 people such as these lost their heads. Perhaps this time it will be 3 million. Inflation can only be controlled by deflation and deflation is totally uncontrollable. Misguided isn’t the word for it. Smug and arrogant they’ll again be proven wrong and unfortunately we will all pay a terrible price.

The progenitors of this false economic policy, Keynesianism, have brought the distortion of price mechanisms, created unlimited opportunities for speculation and they have thrown all discipline to the wind. This is the basis for our current Federal Reserve System, which is the engine for such a philosophy. As a result of this policy we will be entering hyperinflation next year and the dollar will continue to fall in value.

Even though gold and silver are suppressed, gold hit a new high this past week. The CRB index did as well with oil leading the way. This is all a manifestation of coming hyperinflation and a falling dollar.

The Keynesians are pumping the money supply and monetizing domestic and foreign debt at a wild pace. The deflationary undertow continues strong as residential and commercial property prices continue their decent. The final impact is still two or more years away.

There are few financial reports that do not include bogus accounting. The FASB changed the rules last year and allowed mark-to-model accounting. Let’s see if they reinstate mark-to-market January 1st. The Basel Accords have been simply ignored and no one discusses them. Exclusive of present on and off balance sheet losses, banks are going to get hit with more residential foreclosure losses and they will be hit by 35% more commercial losses over the next two years. If nothing else the banks cannot refinance perfectly good loans because they do not have the funds to do so.

The big question for the banks is will the government perpetuate this fraud? We do not know, but we rather think they may for the good of the country. If fraud continues it will be for the benefit of Illuminists who run the banks, brokerage houses, insurance companies and transnational conglomerates. Either way again all they are doing is buying time; the end result will be the same. The banking, brokerage and insurance businesses are still broke. Nothing has been done to fix the underlying problem. There have been no structural changes, just the same old criminality. Any changes are patchwork for the public. Stimulus packages, home loan modification and $250 checks for seniors who will not get a COLA increase for the next three years. It is like the mad hatter has been set loose.

Where are the tariffs on goods and services we so desperately need to bring production and jobs back from the third world? Without them everything else is futile. Offshore tax-free earnings, now some $1.3 trillion, are too juicy for the Illuminists to give up. Then again, what better way to destroy an economy, as we wrote in 1967 in the American Mercury?

Then there is the outrageous scam of terrorism and mindless, endless war to again fill the coffers of the Illuminists and rid the world of useless eaters.

Monetization only makes matters much worse, as we shall see when hyperinflation revisits us next year. In this process the dollar is allowed to collapse and it was planned that way.

Borrowers have sold more than $1 trillion in US corporate bonds in 2009, the fastest pace on record. Citigroup and General Electric were the year’s biggest issuers. Sales compare with $873.2 billion in all of 2008, and $1.17 trillion for 2007, the biggest year for bond sales.

The record rally in the price of loans owed by the riskiest corporate borrowers may end a two- year drought in leveraged buyouts. Banks provided almost $7.5 billion of high-yield loans in the U.S. and Europe since July 1 to finance acquisitions, more than double the amount in the three months ended June 30 and more than four times the figure in the first quarter.

Central banks flush with record reserves are increasingly snubbing dollars in favor of euros and yen, further pressuring the greenback after its biggest two-quarter rout in almost two decades. Policy makers boosted foreign currency holdings by $413 billion last quarter, the most since at least 2003, to $7.3 trillion. Nations reporting currency breakdowns put 63% of the new cash into euros and yen in April, May and June, the latest Barclays Capital data show. That’s the highest percentage in any quarter with more than an $80 billion increase. World leaders are acting on threats to dump the dollar while the Obama administration shows a willingness to tolerate a weaker currency in an effort to boost exports and the economy. The diversification signals that the currency won’t rebound anytime soon after losing 10.3% on a trade-weighted basis the past six months, the biggest drop since 1991.

US foreclosure filings climbed to a record in the third quarter according to RealtyTrac Inc. A total of 937,840 homes received a default or auction notice or were repossessed by banks, a 23% increase from a year earlier.

The Chicago Transit Authority proposed service cuts and boosting some bus and train fares 33% to close a $300 million budget gap prompted by pension obligations and the weak economy.

The volume of delinquent commercial mortgages jumped sevenfold last month as borrowers who got loans with lax terms fail to make debt payments amid sinking real estate values, according to Credit Suisse Group AG. In September, installments on $22.4 billion of mortgages were at least 60 days late, up from $3.2 billion a year earlier. The delinquency rate rose 33 bps to 3.34%.

Even as the economy continues to struggle, much of Wall Street is minting money — and looking forward again to hefty bonuses.

Many Americans wonder how this can possibly be. How can some banks be prospering so soon after a financial collapse, even as legions of people worry about losing their jobs and their homes?

It may come as a surprise that one of the most powerful forces driving the resurgence on Wall Street is not the banks but Washington. Many of the steps that policy makers took last year to stabilize the financial system — reducing interest rates to near zero, bolstering big banks with taxpayer money, guaranteeing billions of dollars of financial institutions’ debts — helped set the stage for this new era of Wall Street wealth.

You can’t make up stuff like this! Facing jeers over outlandish pay, the CEO of Goldman Sachs stresses the social goods of his firm's business.

Blankfein, speaking at a breakfast conversation hosted by Fortune, emphasized that the investment firm serves "an important social purpose" by channeling pools of money held by pension funds and others to companies and governments around the world…

But Blankfein said principal trading -- trades the firm makes for its own account -- makes up just a small fraction of Goldman's profits. [Perhaps Blankfein needs remedial math.]

How can Blankfein make such an absurd claim when in the last quarter $10B of Goldie’s $12.4B in revenue came from trading? Obviously Blankfein believes people are stupid given his statement that Goldies principal trading makes up a small fraction of Goldie’s profits. What a crock! And Al Capone used to run soup kitchens.

Borrow from the Federal Reserve at zero and lend to Treasury for a profit. That's some racket. The banks have no incentive to lend. Most of them still have a significant amount of bad loans sitting on their books that they don't want to recognize as nonperforming. If the banks recognize these bad loans, all the write-offs may force them into bankruptcy. Instead, they hope that over time renegotiated loan terms will eventually allow the borrowers to make their payments. This ordeal could last at least a decade if this cycle is similar to other crises, like Japan's lost decade of the 1990s…banks can earn a huge spread by borrowing virtually unlimited amounts for nothing and lending that same money back to the Treasury.

Source: The International Forecaster

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Italian Professor who doubts Auschwitz gassings faces legal action


Rome, 23 October 2009 (AKI) - The Holocaust-denying views of an Italian academic at the University of Rome 'La Sapienza,' Antonio Caracciolo, has sparked calls for him to resign. The 59-year-old philosophy of law researcher's blogs have described the World War II Nazi Holocaust - or extermination of six million Jews - as "a legend" and claim the gas chambers "are one of many 'truths' which need to be verified."

The head of Rome's Jewish community, Riccardo Pacifici, said it will take legal action against the academic. "We are waiting for the university to take measures to protect students and will certainly be taking action against Caracciolo," Pacifici said. "We are confident the university won't be the only institution to act and that the whole of civil society will react."

In 2007, Italy's previous centre-left government, headed by Romano Prodi, passed a law making Holocaust-denial a crime.

The rector of 'La Sapienza', Luigi Frati has announced the university "will consider taking disciplinary action" against Caracciolo, without giving any further details. "He would do well to visit Dachau, which I visited when I was 16, or if he can't manage that, the Ardeatine Caves," said Frati. He was referring to the former Nazi concentration camp in southern Germany and to the notorious World War II massacre of 333 Italian civilians in Rome by Nazi troops.

Rome's mayor Gianni Alemanno has stated his opposition to university lecturers with such views. "I don't think a professor who holds Holocaust-denying views can teach at 'La Sapienza," he stated.

The president of the Lazio region surrounding Rome, Piero Marazzo, and of the Province of Rome, Nicola Zingaretti condemned Caracciolo's views.

'La Sapienza' professors and students also expressed shock and dismay at the content of Caracciolo's blogs. The head of the Political Science Faculty, where Caracciolo teaches, Gianluigi Rossi, said it was "a very bad day." Social sciences undergraduate Massimo, from Florence, described Caracciolo's Holocaust-denying views as "extremely serious."

Caracciolo has denied he is a "historical revisionist" and says he believes in freedom of thought and expression which are guaranteed under the Italian constitution.

It is not the first time that an Italian academic has expressed such views. In November last year, Roberto Valvo, a high-school history teacher was suspended after he claimed there was "no proof" of the Holocaust.

In May 2007, authorities barred a visit to Italy by the French Holocaust-denying historian Robert Faurisson, on the invitation of Claudio Moffa, a lecturer at the Univerity of Teramo in Italy's central Abruzzo region.

The move came after heated protests from Italy's Jewish community. Caracciolo had defended the planned debate.

Source: On the Contrary

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End the Occupation: A Mission for the Oath-Keepers





















One Nation, under Occupation: Police departments nation-wide are acting as if this were a conquered country, and as if citizens were "enemy combatants."



A thin blanket of early evening darkness had draped itself across Alex Locklear's home in Maxton, North Carolina when the armed intruders arrived.


Brandishing firearms, the invaders forced several people -- including wheelchair-bound Nicholas Locklear and a pregnant woman -- to the ground and then barged in through the rear door, threatening to "blow the brains" out of anyone who put up a struggle. One woman was so terrified that she fled, tripped over an unseen obstruction, and broke her arm.


The arrival of an unmarked police car with its blue running lights flashing must have provided the victims of the home invasion with a moment's relief. But that relief would have quickly turned to a different flavor of alarm when the victims realized that their assailants were the police.


Under the pretext of a drug search, the five-man robbery crew ransacked the Locklear home in search of large amounts of cash that could be "forfeited" -- that is, stolen -- as alleged drug proceeds. The robbers had to be content with the $200 they found in Alex Locklear's bedroom, which is all they could put their hands on before piling into the police car and pulling away with such reckless haste that the vehicle shed one of its front hubcaps.


Locklear, who returned shortly after the robbery, reported the crime to the Robeson County Sheriff's Office, giving descriptions of the assailants and their vehicle. Not surprisingly, the Sheriff didn't follow up on that solid lead, because the robbery had been spearheaded by
Robeson County Deputy Sheriff Vincent Sinclair, a member of the department's drug enforcement unit.


The March 14, 2004 robbery most likely came about because the Sheriff's Department discovered that Locklear had cashed a large check to pay workers on his 400-acre farm before heading for a motorcycle rally in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. And that assault differed only in detail from similar outrages taking place every single day in the purported Land of the Free.


The chances are pretty good that as you read these words, paramilitary attacks -- commonly described as "no-knock raids" -- are either being planned or executed somewhere in the U.S. Typically carried out by the military units called SWAT or tactical teams, those raids are generally triggered by a tip from a "confidential informant" -- a paid snitch -- and subsidized with federal funds, often through the "Justice" Department's Byrne Grant program.


Ironically, those on the receiving end of such "authorized" assaults are often treated even worse than the victims of the raid on the Locklear home.




No recourse:
Last August, a SWAT team in Anderson, Indiana destroyed Barbara Williams' home in a mistaken armed raid. According to the city attorney, since the assault was "legal," the city is not liable for the damages, and the now-homeless Mrs. Williams is just S.O.L.




When property is damaged or innocent people are injured or killed in the course of an "authorized" home invasion, police can generally expect to be held blameless, since any action they perceive as a potential threat supposedly justifies the use of deadly force.


Witness the case of 22-year-old Houston resident Pedro Oregon Navarro, who was murdered by police who invaded his family's home in a mistaken "no-knock" raid. Navarro, who had armed himself with a handgun to deal with belligerent intruders he didn't know were police, was shot twelve times.


According to Harris County District Attorney John B. Holmes, Jr., the violent death of Navarro at the hands of the police was not a crime, because "the law does not allow anyone to resist arrest, even an illegal one" -- and that therefore Navarro's murderers "had a right to use deadly force ... if he threatened them."

A common scene in an occupied land: Just your friendly neighborhood JBT, chillin' outside a really tricked-out armored vehicle.

Holmes is a prosecutor, so it's not surprising that he lied about the right to resist an illegal arrest. But his assumption that police have the "right" to kill anyone who resists is almost universally shared within both law enforcement and the "Justice" system.


Apparently, Deputy Sinclair and his gang didn't realize the extent of their official impunity: Had they known that they had the "right" to kill anyone who resisted their illegal invasion, it's likely that someone would have died at the Locklear home.


Like many corrupt police in such circumstances, however, the raiders left a relatively light footprint, most likely out of concern that leaving a corpse or two behind would lead to compromising questions. If their paperwork had been in order, they wouldn't have had to display such restraint.


The attack on Alex Locklear's home was just one of scores or hundreds of violent crimes committed by police in Robeson County, North Carolina committed over nearly a decade beginning in 1995. A federal investigation calling itself "Operation Tarnished Badge" eventually produced the conviction of some 22 police officers and Sheriff's Department personnel, including former Sheriff Glenn Maynor.


Deputies assigned to narcotics duty committed a string of crimes, some of them acts of state-sponsored terrorism -- such as fire-bombing homes of suspected drug dealers, or hiring arsonists to burn down the homes of personal enemies. On one occasion, a deputy doused a recalcitrant suspect with lighter fluid and set him on fire. Drug dealers who cooperated were protected from prosecution; one was even given a gun and a police uniform and permitted to take part in a raid.


Hundreds of thousands of dollars were stolen from people under the pretext of drug asset "forfeiture," with much of it skimmed away for personal use without being reported. District Attorney Johnson Britt noticed a bloc of deputies who were living beyond what he assumed to be their means: They bought boats or other expensive recreational vehicles, took cruise ship vacations together, even went in as a group for Lasik eye surgery.


What really rankled Britt, however, was having hundreds of drug cases dismissed because of the incompetence and corruption of drug enforcement officers in Robeson County. After all, how could a prosecutor make a name for himself if his drug cases -- the bread-and-butter of his profession -- kept being dismissed?


Britt contacted the Feds, and soon enough the Feds discovered that the Robeson drug cops were skimming from the profits of the local forfeiture racket. Presumably, if the cops had been faithfully reporting their haul and content with the kickback the Feds provided, or even if their corruption had been contained and relatively modest, the Feds wouldn't have intervened. As it happens, however, dozens of Robeson cops and deputies were put on trial for stealing "federal funds" -- meaning the cash that was seized at gunpoint from people suspected, but not convicted, of drug-related offenses.


What happened in Robeson County in the years between 1995 and 2002 (when "Operation Tarnished Badge" began) was hardly exceptional. There are many other jurisdictions in which, thanks to the federal "War on Drugs," local Police and Sheriff's Departments have mutated into robber gangs.


For several years, Brian Gilbert, Sheriff of Iowa's Dallas County, ran a very lucrative theft ring. Dallas County sits astride a very well-traveled stretch of I-85, the country's major east-west interstate. Gilbert and his deputies preyed heavily on people driving late-model SUVs with out-of-state license plates -- particularly drivers who appeared to be of Latino extraction.


Stopped for alleged traffic infractions, the drivers would be threatened with prosecution for drug-related offenses -- such as "money laundering" -- if they were found to be in possession of significant amounts of cash. That trouble could be avoided if the drivers simply surrendered their vehicles and money to the county.


This little scam netted millions of dollars, and might still be in operation today had Gilbert not gotten a bit too greedy: He was caught taking home several paper sacks filled with money that had been stolen during a traffic stop. For this act of felonious grand larceny, Gilbert lost his job and was given a suspended ten-year prison sentence, along with five years' probation.


Police in Kingsville, Texas have been more disciplined than Gilbert and his gang in Iowa. Because that tiny town is located along Highway 77, a route often used by suspected drug couriers, police have been able to confiscate millions in putative drug proceeds, with eighty percent of what they steal going directly into the city budget. This is why the exceptionally well-paid police in that town of 25,000 have tricked-out high-performance cop cars and all the latest digital toys.


It's important to italicize the fact that the people from whom this money is stolen have not been convicted of crimes -- or even, in most cases, formally accused of crimes. All that is required is the presence of a large amount of cash coupled with an assertion by self-interested law enforcement officers that there is a suspected "nexus" to drug activity of some kind.


A recent federal court decision (entitled -- I'm not kidding -- United States of America v. $124,700, in U.S. Currency) held, in effect, that traveling with a large amount of currency offers sufficient probable cause to justify a narcotics-related forfeiture. Once the proper incantations are uttered and the requisite paperwork is filled out in the typical tax-feeder's sub-literate scrawl, the money itself is found "guilty" and taken into government custody.



Police and prosecutors in Tenaha, Texas -- a town in Shelby County bordering Louisiana -- have added some innovative wrinkles to the familiar forfeiture racket. A current federal lawsuit describes how Tenaha police have refined to a science the practice of targeting motorists -- generally "racial and ethnic minorities, and those in their company" -- for unjustified traffic stops, during which they are questioned as to "whether they have money or valuables" and then subjected to illegal searches.


Should money or items of value be found, the motorist and passengers are then placed under arrest for "money laundering" or drug-related charges, and then given an ultimatum: Sign away their property or face prosecution. This form of extortion-robbery is particularly effective when the victim is carrying an abnormal but relatively small amount of cash -- say, less than $5,000 -- that wouldn't be enough to compensate for the hassle and expense of mounting a legal defense.


In one of the cases described in the lawsuit, an individual named Danny Green who works as an investigator for the Shelby County Prosecutor's Office threatened to kidnap a couple's children if they didn't sign a document surrendering about $6,000 in cash.


Den of thieves:
The Tenaha, Texas City Hall.


George Bowers, the superannuated mayor of Tenaha, insists that the seizures are justified not because of a compelling law enforcement need, but because his municipal government needs the money.


Oh. Well, then -- why not?


Why bother trying to cultivate a local economy when there are innocent motorists to shake down?


To understand the depth of cynical corruption that exists in Shelby County, consider the reaction of District Attorney Lynda Russell to the lawsuit: She sought official permission to use forfeited funds to defend herself from charges that she had illegally confiscated those same funds.



Nope, that isn't David Allen Coe: This vision of feminine refinement is Shelby County District Attorney Lynda Russell (a Republican, natch), a Queenpin (as it were) of the county's forfeiture mob.

If this kind of thing were taking place only in isolated, one-stoplight, speed-trap towns like Tenaha -- places where the local government is the malodorous residue at the bottom of a very shallow gene pool -- it would be disgusting, but avoidable.


But this kind of outright larceny under color of "law" is underway wherever the Feds have fomented an official crime spree in the name of the "war on drugs."


We really shouldn't perceive the "war on drugs" in metaphorical terms. This is an actual war, albeit one that targets individual liberties, rather than illicit commerce.


Thanks to this war, innocent people are frequently terrorized by military assaults on their homes, and injured or even killed without legal consequence. It's because of this war that travelers have a fully justified fear of being illegally detained and robbed at gunpoint by people in government-issued costumes.


That homefront war inspired "exceptions" to the posse comitatus law to permit the hands-on involvement of the military in domestic law enforcement. Even more alarming is the fact that it led directly to the federalization and militarization of law enforcement -- which means that the police themselves are, in effect, an army of occupation right now.



This state of affairs suggests a vitally important mission for the movement called "Oath Keepers" -- an association of retired and active-duty law enforcement and military personnel who define their allegiance in terms of fidelity to the Constitution, rather than loyalty or obedience to political officials.


As men committed to the Constitution, Oath Keepers have made it clear that there are at least ten specific kinds of orders they will not obey -- orders to disarm American civilians, conduct warrantless searches, blockade or interdict American cities, invade and subjugate states that assert their reserved powers and constitutional sovereignty, subject citizens to military tribunals, enforce martial law decrees, or otherwise undermine or infringe upon the constitutionally guaranteed individual rights of Americans.


Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes explains that Oath Keepers will stand down rather than carry out such illegal orders, and be prepared to defend law-abiding citizens against the aggression of a lawless government.
Predictably, Oath Keepers has been identified as a domestic enemy by Morris Dees' for-profit Stasi, the so-called Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).


SPLC Commissar Mark Potok (whose name, appropriately, is very similar to a Klingon epithet describing a sleazy, cowardly wretch).



According to the SPLC and its allies in the government-aligned media, the principled refusal of Oath Keepers to carry out criminal violence against innocent citizens is a variety of terrorism, or at least something akin to terrorism.


During a recent installment of Chris Matthews' cable television program, Matthews and SPLC apparatchik Mark Potok did their level best to contort comments made by Oath Keepers founder Rhodes into an endorsement of insurrectionary violence.


Matthews, who appears to be bucking for a Daytime Emmy, theatrically feigned incredulity that any responsible person could believe it possible that concentration camps could be erected on American soil -- ignoring such trivial matters as the WWII-era detention of Japanese-Americans and the hideous treatment of American Indians during the 19th Century. For his part, Potok insisted that Oath Keepers were cultivating terrorism by spreading alarmist rhetoric about the possibility of martial law.


Bear in mind that the SPLC's core fund-raising activity consists of hitting up elderly donors with appeal letters that traffic in alarmist rhetoric that treats the tiny, inconsequential white supremacist movement as nothing less than the Fourth Reich on the March.


To judge from the SPLC's standard spiel, the most significant threat to individual rights comes from toothless cretins in Klan regalia and socially inept Nazi wanna-bes with man-boobs. Meanwhile, black Americans, Latinos, and other people for whom the SPLC displays such supposed solicitude are being terrorized by armed government officials who are carrying out a very literal war within our borders.


This presents Oath Keepers with a splendid PR opportunity that should become one of its most important ongoing campaigns: Why doesn't that organization reach out to another estimable group, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, in demanding an end to the "war on drugs"?


Most of the unconscionable acts and policies the Oath Keepers oppose -- wholesale violation of individual rights, detentions, confiscations, civilian disarmament, militarization of domestic law enforcement -- are not a vague future possibility, but rather a tangible reality right now because of the "war on drugs."


Most, but by no means all, of the victims of that war are non-white Americans.
It would be entertaining to watching the SPLC try to explain how Oath Keepers could qualify as a "hate group" even as they took up the cause of black and Hispanic Americans suffering official abuse by way of the "war on drugs."


Valuable as it is for Oath Keepers to inoculate police and military personnel against the prospect of wholesale martial law, the group should be urging such personnel to stand down right now when it comes to carrying out manifestly unconstitutional and anti-American drug war policies.


The Oath Keepers should urge police and Sheriff's Departments to reject counter-narcotics grants and federal subsidies of any kind, including equipment transfers and other material support from the Pentagon. They should find the honest and principled law enforcement personnel who are mortified by the transformation of so many police and Sheriff's departments into criminal syndicates through the practice of "asset forfeiture." And they should take the point in reining in the ever-expanding use of SWAT teams (as a prelude to abolishing them outright, of course).


We're constantly reminded that "most" law enforcement officers are decent, public-spirited men who are disgusted and alarmed by corruption and the abuse of power. By urging that law enforcement stand down from the "war on drugs," Oath Keepers could help us learn whether this is actually the case.

Source: Pro Libertate
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S.F. guard threatens to break photographer’s face and camera


Security guards at 555 California Street make up their own photography laws (Photo by Troy Holden)
Security guards at 555 California Street make up their own photography laws (Photo by Troy Holden)


By Carlos Miller

It seems like the taller the building, the more dickish the security guards.

At least in California where security guards from Los Angeles to San Francisco have made up their own laws regarding photography in public places

Earlier this year, it was security guards at the U.S. Bank in Los Angeles, which is the tallest building west of the Mississippi River.

This week, it was security guards at 555 California Street, the second tallest building in San Francisco.

After hearing the usual story of security guard harassment and intimidation from a photographer name JohnM.brasia, photographer Troy Holden and another photographer decided to check it out for themselves.

Within a few moments several security guards greeted us with wagging fingers and walkie-talkies.

No photography, they stated clearly. Why, we responded. Safety, they said.

I decided to challenge this statement and the older of the bunch (left) asked me if I wanted to be punched in the face. No, I replied, I have to go back to work and a black eye would make things awkward for me. He then asked me how I would feel if he broke my camera. I told him I would be bummed, but that I needed an upgrade and if he touched me or my camera I would seek monetary legal action to the extent of a brand new Canon 5D Mark II

The man on the left threatened to break the photographer's face and camera (Photo by Troy Holden)
The man on the left threatened to break the photographer's face and camera (Photo by Troy Holden)

Holden then sent an email to someone at the top, complaining of the incident. He received the following response from Fatima Vegas who works on the security team for Voranado Reality, the company that manages the property:

“Thank you for your e-mail. I just received information from the incident within the past hour. I am investigating the matter. This is not typical of our security team at 555 California St. If our investigation results in the officer behaving in an unprofessional manner, he will be disciplined accordingly. We do not tolerate that sort of behavior from any of our service providers.”

He should be fired and maybe even investigated by police. Hopefully Troy keeps up with this incident, ensuring the guard no longer is able to make physical threats.

Source: Photography is Not A Crime

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